Moroccan outfit RS Berkane bounced back from last weekend’s stinging 3-1 defeat at the hands of Asec Mimosas to beat Simba SC 2-0 at home and romp to the top of Group D in the TotalEnergies CAF Confederation Cup.
First half goals from Adama Ba and Charki El Bahri were enough for Florent Ibenge’s men who moved to six points, two ahead of erstwhile table topping Simba who now drop to second spot with four points.
Berkane were offensive from the word go and were clearly out to banish the ghosts from last weekend’s trip to Abidjan. They had a chance after 11 minutes when Hamza El Moussaoui rolled a freekick to Bakr El Helali, but his rasping shot from distance went just wide.
They ultimately got into the lead in the 32nd minute when Adama’s brilliantly struck freekick from 35 yards out curled beyond the wall and hit the inside of the right hand post before bouncing into the net.
Adama almost doubled his and Berkane’s tally seven minutes later, but his shot after picking a cutback inside the box was deflected for a corner.
It is from this setpiece that Berkane won two more and on the third, they scored their second goal. El Bahri peeled himself beautifully from his markers before rising to thump home the delivery from El Moussaoui.
In the second half, Tanzanian giants Simba came back determined to get back into the game with the technical bench bringing in the speedy Bernard Morrison for Peter Banda.
But they still struggled to create chances and the closest they came was when skipper John Bocco rose to head from a freekick, but the ball bounced off the basement of the post.
Source: Confederation African de Football (CAF)